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But, apparently January and February are colder, snowier and darker. What you do see, however, are lots and lots of cycleways. And lots of ordinary people riding bikes.

Of course, to achieve such high levels of cycling requires some serious attention to detail. Pavements are wide and typically shared-use. The roads within developments never link through to the next development, although there are typically paths for cycle and foot traffic that link them.

Schools are placed at the ends of these tracks, not right next to main roads. All the things that are needed to make cycling and walking easy and driving trivially short distances hard.

But there is one really impressive thing that Finland does. So impressive that it took me two days to realise. There are no bollards. Or gates. Or anything to stop people from driving along cycleways.

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OK, there is a simple sign that shows a picture of a car that is crossed out. It is the "no motorised vehicle" sign. And another sign that says shared-use cycleway. And typically there is a small kerb that communicates that the motoring bit stops here, but nothing else.

OK, that's not quite true.

At every junction they have a zebra crossing. Crossing the road on foot or on a cycle is given priority. At major roads they normally have over bridges or under bridges.

This makes moving around a little easier. Parking restrictions are everywhere. Even in the middle of suburbia, you'll find two hour or four hour parking restrictions. Car parking is welcomed, but car storage on residential streets is not.

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Public transport is plentiful too. An adult single ticket to get anywhere in greater Helsinki is €9. But if you buy a seven day ticket this reduces to €5.14 a day. Pretty good value. However, you can buy unlimited travel for a year for €600.80, or about €1.65 a day.

The rise in cycling in Finland means that they are now building segregated cycleways along the main roads, and good safe junctions where necessary, copying good designs from other countries. Perhaps we can learn something from the Finns? Paitsi suomenkielellä!